If you can be true to yourself, you'll realize that there are no roles to play, no people to please, no burdens to carry, only the doing of what is already happening.Take a deep breath and feel everything that is happening within you. This is the path inwards.Feel this connection to yourself at all times. It knows things that can neither be learned, nor be taught. They can only be felt.Find that place of spontaneous ebb and flow, for it will tell you when to act and when to let go. When to speak and when to listen

This place is where fearless self expression comes from, for it has no demands from the world. The world can offer it nothing, that it does not already have.

— Finding Awareness

#selfExpression #@findingAwareness

A lot of us are caught in this struggle to find self-love. And we do various things like asserting ourselves, saying No to others, building strong boundaries, protecting our mental state, avoiding certain people etc.

All these things are fair, except they don’t approach the problem directly but in a round about way. Self-love isn’t a thing to chase. If it is chased, one is always at the risk of toeing the line between self-love and self-justification, between self-respect and Ego.

Self-love, if there is such a thing is a quiet side effect of something else altogether. That thing is having a strong inward connection with oneself. Which is knowing oneself thoroughly without any distortion or desires.

Distortion happens when we want to change what we observe in ourselves. I’m too weak, or confused, or intelligent or I have too much empathy or whatever it may be. Labeling what we see (which is commenting on it as being good or bad), itself creates a desire to change it.

This is hard to avoid for judgments (or labels) are automatic. But once a judgment happens the mind wants to change oneself in some way or another (increase the good, reduce the bad). That desire to change creates distortion. Why?

Because we have stopped paying attention to what ‘is’ and have started to run behind what ‘should be’. To stay with ‘what is’, is to be connected with oneself. This is enough. Not changing oneself, but simply knowing oneself. Isn’t this easier ? Isn’t this simpler?

Once we have this connection, which is we can notice the slightest change in our emotional states, our feelings or our thoughts, we begin to rest more and more in our own skin.

This relaxation makes us want to be with ourselves. It makes us gently align with our goals and values. This alignment is nothing but self-love.

It’s a serendipitous discovery, a happy accident of being connected and integrated from within. This connection is the answer to almost every problem that arises in our life, or the lives of our loved ones.

For when we are connected we can respond without hesitation, fear or confusion. We’re always there, in the moment, where everything else is.

— Finding Awareness

Generally speaking awareness or observation is simply to look. Yet this is not the complete truth. Practicing self awareness makes it sound as if all we are doing is observing what is happening in our mind.

While that is true, there is another dimension to this phenomenon of observation which is never spoken about. This phenomenon is that of intentional thinking. This is not ordinary thinking which is random, uncontrolled and unintentional.

The thinking associated with self awareness and observation is more direct, controlled and intentional. It is to say, “Let me observe how I have been thinking about this so far”, and then examining each thought slowly and deliberately. It is to ‘hold the problem’ we are thinking about gently in our conscious awareness and asking the question, “Why”. Thinking while observing: “Why am I angry? Why am I triggered? Is it because I feel helpless? Why am I feeling helpless? Is it because I can’t make them see myself the same way I see myself? But I never can control the way someone sees the world. Then am I helpless because what they said, has an element of truth to it, and I am unable to reconcile that truth with what I thought of myself?

So it looks like my anger comes from my own momentary confusion about who I am. If I knew myself deeply, their words would be instantly recognized as false or true. Either way I wouldn’t be triggered. But I am. I am angry not because of their words, but because those words created conflict within me which I couldn’t resolve. So that means I don’t know myself as well as I thought I did. This anger has got nothing to do with them. It’s just a sign that I don’t yet fully know myself.” To go into this very slowly, step by step, is Insight meditation. The last line is the insight. This insight creates spontaneous silence. It resolves the anger without having to retaliate and create more conflict. This was all still thinking, but of a different quality altogether.

This thinking revealed the nature of our unconsciousness through the art of questioning. Asking the right question is more important than looking for answers.

The truth about us is hidden in plain sight. All we have to do is look.

— Finding Awareness

When we are distracted, worried, lost in thought, or stuck with something in our distant past, we are in what I call the divided state of mind.

This is not a simple lack of focus or an inability to concentrate, but being stuck elsewhere emotionally. We are not here and flowing, we are somewhere else. Either we are focused on a past painful experience or on avoiding that experience in the future.

We get stuck in the past emotional content because it was unresolved. An experience when not undergone fully, gets stored in the memory for future experiencing. This is unresolved emotional content.

A rude remark from someone, which we couldn’t respond to in that moment, becomes part of our unresolved past. We couldn’t deal with it then, so it got stored in our mind to deal with later.

Breakups which don’t end in proper closures are another example of the same thing. All those things which we couldn’t say, had no one to tell, or couldn’t deal with are stored here, in the reserves of our unresolved past.

When we have an unresolved past, which we all do, we can’t have undivided presence in the moment. Needless to say, we constantly create more unresolved past because of it. Accumulating more pain on top of layers and layers of previous painful accumulations.

If we can release this past, by surrendering and allowing the experiences to arise, we can then fully re-experience them. We can stay aware and let it come over us. Only we can hold our hand through this and gently guide ourselves. Only we can talk to ourselves and finally listen to the things which we could never tell anyone, and calmly say, ”It’s okay”. If we are able to fully re-experience our past this way, we not only release and resolve it, but also re-interpret it. We see what happened to us in a new light. The difference is that the new understanding is devoid of any pain and unresolved content.

Now we can begin to flow, be in the moment, fully and gracefully. This is life itself, being here and now. This is all there is, an undivided mind, experiencing the undivided present moment.